HootSuite for Android™ is a FREE app that helps you update your social networks, monitor conversations, and track results – all from your Android™ handset.Simple, elegant and powerful, HootSuite for Android™ allows you to send updates to Twitter and Facebook from virtually anywhere. Plus, you can easily manage campaigns, schedule updates, and even view clickthrough stats for your social networks.

HootSuite’s actually a cross-platform “professional Twitter client,” covering the desktop, iPhone and Android spaces. The Android app — released in early March — is the only contestant in this shootout that lets you schedule tweets and track click stats on its “http://ow.ly/…” links, although the latter is only available in the full version ($2.99). It took us some time to become familiar with managing various “streams” — for some reason we had to manually add our own timelines to begin with, but otherwise this is no doubt the best Android client for professional social media users. That said, it’s rather strange that HootSuite doesn’t let you create or edit lists, nor does it support geotagging or even offer any widgets.

Hootsuite aims to provide solutions to the many problems of the official Twitter app. Multiple accounts are supported – they are in the official app too, finally, but the Hootsuite method is slicker. And you can also post to Facebook, LinkedIn and even MySpace, which is obviously better than Twitter’s apps.

Hootsuite’s strengths though are in the way it handles multiple Twitter accounts in one seamless app. If you’ve used the Hootsuite website and found it to be slow, then the good news is that the Android app is a lot better. It’s not burdened with sluggish HTML, so things feel more responsive and less frustrating.

You can swipe through your various columns. These are customisable, but the obvious choices are that you have your home stream, @mentions and direct messages followed by any searches you have saved. Because everything is synced to Hootsuite’s servers, you can set your service up on the firm’s website, and then access those customisations on your Android device.

Notifications are individual too, so you’ll see a separate entry for each account on Android. This can be both good and annoying. It does mean you can ignore “work” tweets at the weekend, and just enjoy the more social side of social networking, but it can also get overwhelming.

The way Hootsuite handles saved searches is particularly good. It means, if you want to keep track of a phrase or hashtag, the company will do it all for you. It’s a far more satisfying and productive process than we’ve seen on other Twitter apps. Facebook integration is so-so, but if you’re looking for a single app to handle everything, it’s probably sufficient, although it’s really for the news feed and nothing else.

Support for multiple networks also brings with it the ability to cross-post. This means if you have an update you’d like to go out on all your networks, you can select them all at the same time, before sending the message. Use with caution though, as you should be cleverer about what you post where! Of course, Hootsuite also makes itself useful for collaboration. This is especially true of the website, but if you’re involved in a group account, the app can certainly help you manage tweets, with scheduled updates – something that can be very helpful for work-based tweeting.

Use HootSuite for Android to:

Manage multiple social identities and accounts

Receive optional background notifications for updates

Create custom views for tags and searches

Schedule messages to send in the future

Examine Ow.ly click-through stat reports

Share and store photos and files

Shorten URLs with Ow.ly

HootSuite for Android™ complements your HootSuite web account – you can quickly import accounts with a simple migration wizard to get started. So get your fingers on this Owl to build your audience and keep informed on important topics from anywhere